The deadliest Ebola outbreak in history that has so far killed almost 1000 people in Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria in West Africa has caused fear around the world.

    The outbreak is unprecedented（空前的）both in infection numbers and in geographic scope. Officials from the World Health Organization (WHO) said earlier this month the outbreak “is moving faster than our efforts to control it”, reported CNN. So far, the battle against the virus doesn't appear to be slowing down.

    The Ebola virus is terrifying no matter where it strikes: It's a disease with no cure that causes headaches and fever, severe diarrhea(腹泻), vomiting and bleeding and has been known to kill up to 90 percent of its victims.

    It is understandable for people to be panicked, but those living outside Africa shouldn't be particularly concerned about contracting the virus, says a Washington Post article.

    This is because transmission of Ebola requires direct contact with an infected person's blood, vomit or other bodily fluids during the period that he or she is contagious(接触传染的). It is something that is extremely unlikely for anyone but healthcare workers. The virus is not spread by coughing or sneezing.

    Media outlets in the US and the UK are using terrifying headlines, wrongly claiming that people infected with the virus have traveled to their countries.

    James Ball at The Guardian says the Ebola outbreak in Africa is tragic, but it is important to keep a sense of proportion. Other infectious diseases, including common influenza, are far, far deadlier.

    It was 3:21 a.m. when nine-year-old Glenn Kreamer awoke to the smell of burning. Except for the cracking(爆烈声) of flames somewhere below there was not a sound in the two-storey house at Baldwin Long Island.

    With his father away on night duty at a local factory, Glenn was worried about the safety of his mother, his sister Karen, 14 and his 12-year-old brother Todd. He ran downstairs through the smoke-filled house to push and pull at Karen and Todd until they sat up. Then he helped each one through the house to the safety of the garden. There, his sister and brother, taking short and quick breaths and coughing, fell down onto the lawn.

    The nine-year-old boy raced back into the house and upstairs to his mother's room. He found it impossible to wake her up. Mrs. Kreamer, a victim of the smoke, was unconscious(昏厥的), and there was nobody to help Glenn carry her to the garden. But the boy remained calm and, as a fireman said later, "acted with all the self-control of a trained adult."

    On the bedroom telephone, luckily still working, Glenn called his father and, leaving Mr. Kreamer to telephone the fire brigade and ambulance service, got on with the task of saving his mother.

    First he filled a bucket with water from the bathroom and threw water over his mother and her bed. Then, with a wet cloth around his head he went back to the garden.

    He could hear the fire engine coming up, but how would the firemen find his mother in the smoke-filled house where flames had almost swallowed up the ground floor?

    Grasping firmly a ball of string(线) from the garage, Glenn raced back into the house and dashed upstairs to his mother's room. Tying one end of the string to her hand, he ran back, laying out the string as he went, through the hall and back out into the garden.

    Minutes later he was telling fire chief John Coughlan, "The string will lead you to mother." Mrs. Kreamer was carried to safety as the flames were breaking through her bedroom floor.

Worlds of Fun

    Location: Worlds of Fun is located off Highway 435 in Kansas City, Missouri.

History: Worlds of Fun was opened on May 26, 1973, at a cost of 25 million dollars, which was founded by Hunt Midwest Company. In 1982, Hunt Midwest bought a nearby water park，Oceans of Fun, In 2013, Worlds of Fun and Oceans of Fun were combined to a one ticket admission, providing all guests with 235 acres of amusement and water rides.

Hours: Worlds of Fun is open from April through Halloween.

Tickets: Buy and print online. Always try to buy your tickets in advance, to save time when you get to the park.

Reservations: Worlds of Fun sells “Fast Lane” cards that save riders' time by allowing them to bypass the majority of wait for most of rides and attractions. Ride as many times as you want all day long.

Strategy (策略): Most visitors tend to begin the day with Prowler, the hottest attraction in the park. However, you'd better use that trend and head to the Patriot first. After that, try the Dragons. Then work your way back to the Prowler. After riding the Prowler, there is only one coaster left, Mamba. Hit it next. If the park is not very crowded, you can ride Boomerang on the way to Mamba. After riding Mamba, head back for a ride on the Wolf. By then you will have tried most of the popular rides and attractions in the shortest possible time.

News: In 2017, Worlds of Fun is adding Steel Hawk, a ride that will take guests up 301 feet in the air and spin (旋转) them at a 45-degree angle for a 60-second flight. Wait to have a try!

    The US teenager Thomas Cheatham had planned to study Latin during his time at Hebron High School in Texas. But when he learned that the school district was going to offer a Mandarin class, he quickly changed his mind.

    “I thought Mandarin would be more beneficial than Latin,” said Cheatham, who is now in his second year of studying the language. He speaks Mandarin to order food at Chinese restaurants and can read social media posts from his Chinese-speaking friends.

    While it's a difficult language to master, the high school junior, who plans to study computer engineering, thinks it will be important for his career. “Chinese is a good language to know, especially with China becoming a growing power,” he said.

    Many experts agree that proficiency in a language spoken by a billion people worldwide will give American students an edge in the global economy. “People are looking at China as our next economic competitor, and interest in Mandarin is growing,” said Marty Abbott, executive director of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. “We're seeing it in all parts of the country. ”

    Abbott estimates that as many as 100, 000 students are now studying Mandarin throughout the US, in public and private schools. She said the US government has designated (指定) Mandarin as a “critical needs” language and provides professional development programs for teachers. “Our government wants to increase our language competency for national security and economic competitiveness,” Abbott said.

    At the same time, the Chinese government is spreading knowledge of the Chinese language and culture through Confucius Institutes established in many US states. For example, the Confucius Institute at the University of Texas in Dallas has been the home of a Confucius Institute for 10 years. It sponsors Confucius Classrooms at 21 local public and private schools, where tens of thousands of students are learning Mandarin.

    The saying, "Don't judge a book by its cover, means you should not guess the worth or value of something based on how it looks. That message was clear at a recent event called the Human Library Project. The event took place at the Northern Virginia, or NoVa, Community College, outside of Washington. D. C.

    The Human Library began 19 years ago in Denmark. It grew from a youth organization called "Stop the Violence". Today, it is a worldwide movement. At the NoVa event, students got the chance to learn from a person—a "human book"—instead of a library book.

    Patricia Cooper organized the event. She said that human books celebrate variety by telling their life stories in an easy-going setting. "The goal of the human library is to talk to people in your community who you may otherwise not speak to because you have your own prejudices (偏见) and hopefully to break down some of these barriers."

    This is the third year that NoVa has held such an event. The collection of human books included a civil rights activist, a scientist from the American space agency NASA, and an opera singer.

    Artist Brian Dailey was a human book. He spoke about his travels to 113 countries in seven years. Dailey said that, during his travels, he asked people whom he took pictures of for a one-word answer to a series of other words—such as love, freedom and war. He discovered that people in different countries often had very different reactions to the same word.

    When Dailey asked people in Africa about the word "war" they used words like justice, liberation and peace. When he asked the same question to people in Syrian refugee camps, the answer was: "tears, hunger, fear, destruction".

    There have been many problems with our schools today, the biggest of which is closely related to our culture. In general, our culture, as represented in the media, gets excited by famous stars, and constantly stresses that it's what you have, not what you are, that counts. Parents are encouraged to be away from even very small children for most of the day. Too many voters go for politicians who would rather cut school funding than to get rid of tax cuts for the wealthy. All contribute greatly to the problems of educating our children.

    Today's teachers have to deal with a culture that is vastly different than in the past. They report that there is, among more children than ever, a lack of motivation, no drive to succeed or even try. The role models that boys view in the media mostly consist of men in comedies and other shows who are rude and often extremely immature; self-centered overpaid athletes; men in movies, television dramas, video games, etc. who are preoccupied with violence and power. As Leonard Sax wrote in "Boys Adrift", "Teenage boys are looking for models of mature adulthood, but we no longer make any collective effort to provide such models." Girls are attacked not only with such annoying images of males, but also with women who are preoccupied with appearance and are extremely materialistic.

    In such a cultural environment, it is more important than ever to have responsible, loving and caring parents who have enough time and motivation to devote to their children and see to it as their duty to model for them and raise them with high standards of honesty and responsibility along with tending to their physical needs. They need to care enough to see that their children are not attacked with the garbage that comes from movie, television and computer screens. In today's culture, they are basically alone in this effort since, unfortunately, so much is working against them.

    Until we, as a culture, face the truth about ourselves — that we are not providing adequately for a great many of our children — the storm will continue to rage over our education system.